A serious word about the nature of guns

Big Red Car here. Going all serious on you about the nature of guns, mostly handguns.

So here it is.

Reason v force

At some time in your life, God forbid, you may find yourself in a tight situation in which your personal physical safety may be in danger.

You really only have two possible resolutions.

1. You can use reason and persuasion to extract yourself from this situation; or,

2. You can use force to extract yourself from this situation.

The choice may not be yours.

How civilized are we, really?

If society were fully civilized there would only be reason and persuasion. There would be no necessity to use force.

Force unfortunately is not always a decision you alone can make. Sometimes it is imposed upon an otherwise innocent member of society. Arguably law enforcement is then the counterforce but waiting for law enforcement may cost you your life. That is unfortunate but true.

So what can you do?

You can respond with lifesaving force to literally save your own life.

If you fell into a lake, you would not wait to be saved you would swim to shore. In this example your own self help remedy is only available if you know how to swim. You know how to save your own life in that circumstance. Good for you. Those swimming lessons paid off. Big time.

When persuasion does not work, what then?

Like the lifesaving analogy above, when persuasion and reason do not work, then we are responsible for our own safety.

Enter the gun. The hand gun. It could literally save your life.

No gun and you are in for a very dangerous potentially fatal beating. The stakes are very high. Literally life and death.

Banning guns favors the aggressor

If you cannot reason yourself out of an attack, then you are forced to protect yourself. Don’t kid yourself this will happen because the aggressor knows that under a regime of gun control, you cannot possibly defend against an armed — even if armed with a baseball bat — aggressor.

If the aggressor is bigger than you, then the likelihood of your successfully defending yourself is virtually nil. You are in real trouble. And not of your own making.

Again, enter the gun. It could literally save your life.

Owning a gun favors the weaker person in a confrontation

Stating the obvious, once we are beyond the decision point as to whether reason and persuasion could possibly resolve the situation, we are in the cage match of force and a gun can even the match out just a bit. The weaker person — the victim — is the sole beneficiary of having a weapon.

Suddenly the advantages enjoyed the aggressor are evened out. The playing field has been leveled.

A 250 lbs man is now at best the equal of a 105 lbs woman, when the woman has a gun.

A marauding gang of wilding teenagers immediately lose their overwhelming advantage when their victim owns and knows how to use a handgun with 10 bullets in the magazine.

The odds of a sure beating and potential death are suddenly recalculated. It is an immediate touch of the “reset” button with the victim’s prospects improving.

Why are we outlawing self protection and favoring the aggressor?

So when I carry a gun, I am not looking for trouble. I am looking to be able to survive should persuasion and reason not prevail.

I am a civilized man and when I cannot live in a civilized world, then do not disadvantage me. Let me have an alternative other than having to endure a potentially life threatening beating or death.

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Personally I would have no problem with it but I think the effort is on very shaky Constitutional ground.

It is on shakier ground from an effectiveness perspective — less than 3% of the gun crimes are committed with long rifles of any kind.

One is going to limit magazines to 10 rounds — to what end? The crazy people are going to commit murder, you think they drive under the speed limit on the road over to the crime scene?

I would favor a list of crazy people who are prohibited from saying the word “gun”, a very fierce background check for everyone (including gun shows), 60-day waiting period, huge “big data” info set with every gun transaction accounted for, mandatory gun safety training, mandatory marksmanship training, mandatory security of firearms including trigger locks and a number of other administrative
tools.

I don’t think anything will be effective other than making a list of crazy people.

The nexus at which the outcomes can be changed is — crazy person & gun.
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